


Murder on a Technicality

by fandomsandxfiles



Series: Files From the FBI's Most Unwanted [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Canon Compliant, Case Fic, F/M, Humor, In my head this takes place during season 7, i think??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25973743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomsandxfiles/pseuds/fandomsandxfiles
Summary: It was only a matter of time before Mulder did something like this. Or alternatively, Scully receives a cryptic phone call and realizes that her partner shouldn’t be left alone without supervision.
Relationships: Fox Mulder & Dana Scully, Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Series: Files From the FBI's Most Unwanted [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020487
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Murder on a Technicality

**Author's Note:**

> the idea for this fic would not leave me alone, so I finally sat down and wrote it. I got the idea from an episode of bones and I thought it would work really well with Mulder and Scully :) 
> 
> you can also find me on tumblr [@fandomsandxfiles](https://fandomsandxfiles.tumblr.com/).

At this point, Scully was used to getting strange calls on Saturday mornings. Mulder sometimes never left the office on Friday evenings, and would call her to discuss whatever had piqued his interest at the time, usually some utterly ridiculous newspaper article about UFOs or some man-eating creature in the woods. What she wasn't used to, was getting told that she was needed for something urgent. 

When Scully stepped through the door of the Lone Gunmen's office, it was noticeably colder than usual, even though the weather in DC had been fairly cool recently. "Mulder?" she called through the seemingly empty office. 

"Scully! Come on back!" his voice shouted faintly. Scully shook her head and started to follow his voice, wondering if they would be dealing with aliens or government conspiracies this time. 

She was in no way prepared for what she saw. 

"Mulder, please tell me that's not what I think it is," she said, staring at the center of the room, where a desk had been cleaned off and now there was what looked suspiciously like a dead body was laying on it. 

"Hate to be the bearer of bad news Agent Scully, but I'm pretty sure that is exactly what you think it is," Langly said, basically appearing out of nowhere with Byers and Frohike. 

Scully let out a heaving sigh before continuing. "Then would one of you like to explain why there's a corpse in the middle of the room, and where it came from?" 

The gunmen were silent, so Scully turned to Mulder, eyebrows raised. "You three are no help!" he said, glaring at them. 

"I'm sorry Mulder, this does really all come down to you," Byers reasoned. "You would explain it better than any one of us." 

"Yeah, Mulder, so what happened?" Scully asked as she crossed her arms. "You called me here on a day off, the least you could do is explain to me what was so important that you stole a dead body from a funeral home."

"I was at the funeral home for the wake of a family friend, and I took a wrong turn on the way to the bathroom, and I ended up instead in the room where they keep the other bodies." Scully just looked at him, not convinced in the slightest. So he kept going. "One of the cards with all the information was knocked over, so I went to pick it up, and that's when I realized that the information on the card did not match the body." 

"You don't even know if he was actually murdered,” Scully said, arms crossed. “All you have is a bookkeeping error.” 

"Well I thought that too, until I read the card more. That body was marked for cremation this evening, which means that someone is trying to hide evidence before it can be investigated." 

"Did you at least check to see if the card wasn't switched with one of the other bodies?" Scully asked.

"Yeah I did, and when it didn't match any of the others, that's when I knew it was murder and not just a clerical error like you suggested." 

Scully let out a deep breath before speaking again. "You know Mulder, we still haven't addressed one thing. You can't just go stealing bodies from funeral homes!"

"Why not? This man was murdered, and I work for the FBI!" 

"It's - it's like grave robbing! People in funeral homes are going to be put to rest peacefully, they're not evidence! And you can't even prove that he was murdered in the first place!" She said, gesturing to the body on the table. "You need to bring this guy back!" 

"Scully, you and I both know that it's not technically grave robbing if the casket isn't in the ground," Mulder shot back. "And this guy won't rest peacefully until we solve his murder, so are you going to help or not?"

"I'm still not even convinced this was murder, Mulder I think you're becoming a workaholic and you invented a case that holds no real substance." 

"Scully, as much as I might have become a workaholic this case does have substance and we need to solve it," Mulder said, with a look he knew Scully couldn't say no to. "Please?" 

Scully let out a heaving sigh before answering. "Fine. What do you need me to do?" 

***

An hour later, Scully was waiting in the lab for Mulder and the gunmen to bring in the body so she could look at it. She wanted to just sneak the body in herself, mainly because she didn't know if she could trust Mulder's ability to be subtle and blend in, but Byers had insisted that they could handle it, and she could maintain plausible deniability. 

When they finally did get the body into the lab, Mulder turned and looked at her expectantly. "Well I'm not doing this with all of you watching me!" she said. "It'll be too suspicious." 

"Come on, we want to know if it was really murder," Langly said. 

"Yeah Mulder dragged us out of bed to help him steal a dead body this morning, so we'd at least like to know if what we did was actually useful," Frohike added. 

"I won't be able to get anywhere with you all staring," Scully said. "And might I remind you that this isn't official FBI business, so we have to keep everything quiet." 

"She's right guys," Mulder said. "Why don't you go back and we'll call you with updates?"

The gunmen eventually agreed and left, but Scully still didn't start cutting. "You need to go too," she said. "If you're not here I can claim that I didn't know where the body came from and I thought I was supposed to be autopsying it." 

Thankfully Mulder didn't argue and left the lab for their office, allowing Scully to start the autopsy. But she didn't even have to cut him open before she noticed a small puncture wound on the body's side. It definitely could have killed the man, and Scully took a deep breath before calling Mulder back up to look at it. 

Within minutes, he came through the door, and he looked like he was going to scream when Scully showed him the wound. "So it's murder?" he said hopefully. 

"Yes, Mulder it's murder but what are we going to do about it?" Scully asked. "We have no idea who this man is, or what he did, or any of the information we'd need to start a murder investigation, and even if we did have that information, I don't see how this would be our jurisdiction! This isn't an X-File Mulder," she said. "At best, it’s something for the Violent Crimes Department." 

"Scully you said it yourself, it's Saturday, they're not going to do anything. The only way this case is going to go anywhere is if we work it." 

"Mulder-" 

"I've got Byers, Langly, and Frohike doing some research on the guy's identity," he said. "And hopefully we'll soon have enough information to start the murder investigation." 

"Alright, I'll help you," Scully said with a sigh. She knew there was no way out of this one. 

Then gunmen worked their technological magic and managed to identify the body sitting in the lab as Dr. Arthur Johnson, a professor at Georgetown who had been reported missing two days prior. And since he was officially labeled as missing, there's no way his family would be setting up a funeral for him. So what was his body doing in a funeral home?

That was a question that the funeral director didn't have an answer to either. "I don't know how another body would have gotten here, as far as I was aware we were only scheduled for one cremation today, and I checked the paperwork myself," he said when Scully and Mulder showed him a photo of Johnson. 

"And everything was in order?" Mulder asked.

"Everything," the funeral director said. "I didn't even see an extra set of paperwork without a body." 

*** 

The only place that brought any leads was the university. Dr. Johnson was apparently widely disliked by his colleagues and students for being too uptight and critical, so apparently it wasn't difficult for people to imagine someone murdering him. But now the mystery seemed to grow, because there were more suspects. And because they were still no closer to identifying the murder weapon.

"Do you know what Dr. Johnson happened to be researching at the time of his death?" Mulder asked Dr. Brown, the head of the classics department. 

"Yes, he was working on authenticating a new collection of Late Antique ceremonial daggers that were recently found at an archaeological dig in Italy.” 

"Are the daggers here on campus?" Scully asked. 

"Yes, in another wing, do you want me to take you to see them?" Brown asked.

Mulder nodded and the two of them were led into a room that housed more knives than either of them could have ever imagined. Each of the knives from the dig were set up next to a pristine replica, and the table was covered in a paper that had scribbled notes all over it. "What's with the tablecloth?" Mulder asked as he looked around the room. 

"Dr. Johnson found it easier to take his notes directly around the artifact in question rather than on a separate piece of paper," Dr. Brown said. "And each of the daggers has a matching professional replica next to it to make authenticating the ones found on the dig a little easier.

That's when Scully noticed something. "Do you have professional replicas of all the different kinds of daggers?" she asked. 

"Yes, why?" 

"Because that means one of them is missing," she said, pointing to the table. Sure enough, there was a blank spot on the paper where nothing had been written, indicating that something had indeed been there, but now it was gone.

"Scully, if someone had taken that knife and stabbed Johnson with it, could it have caused the injury that you saw?" Mulder asked. 

"I can't be totally sure because we don't have the knife itself," Scully said, looking closely at the dagger that was found at the dig. "This one is more worn down and slightly damaged, but if the replica you had actually matched this knife I think it could be the murder weapon." 

***

"You called?" Langly said as he stepped into their office with Byers and Frohike. "Is this still about the body Mulder stole from the funeral home this morning, the professor?"

“Yeah, and we need your help again,” Mulder said. “Apparently the guy was an expert on Ancient Roman daggers and he was authenticating a bunch of new ones. He was using replicas of the same knives to identify them, but one of the replicas is gone.” 

“You think that’s the murder weapon?” Byers asked. 

“Yeah, and we think it might have been put back on display at the university so no one noticed it,” Scully said. “Thankfully, there’s an exhibit run by the history department that showcases ancient knives, and some of the other replicas are on display too. We need you three to go there and see if you notice anything different about any of the knives, like they shouldn’t be on display where they are. The college hadn’t put the replicas the professor was using out yet, which means that if the knife is there, the murderer is the one that put it back.” 

“And we’re hoping that whoever it was that put the knife back made a mistake,” Mulder added. 

“So why do we have to go?” Frohike asked. “What about you two?” 

“We have to go back to the funeral home and get a list of their employees and the wakes they’ve held since Johnson died two days ago. Then, we can see if anyone has any connections to the university or the victim himself,” Scully said. 

“And besides, you three won’t stick out at an exhibit of ancient swords and knives,” Mulder laughed. 

“You do know that we don’t know everything right?’ Byers said as he raised his eyebrows. 

“Yeah, but you wanted to help right?” 

“Touché Mulder, touché.”

***

There was another wake going on at the funeral home when Mulder and Scully walked in, so they quickly signaled to the director that they needed to speak with him and walked off towards the back room. On the way, they passed an old lady in the hallway who gave them a knowing look. “Off to get some alone time are we?” she asked suggestively, looking back and forth between them. “In a funeral home too no less.” 

Mulder’s eyes widened when she realized what the lady was implying, but Scully spoke first. “We’re not together ma’am,” she said politely. “We’re with the FBI.” 

The old lady did not seem convinced, but she didn’t say anything else, she just smiled at them and walked off in the other direction. When she was gone, Mulder looked at Scully and tried to hold back a smile. “She really didn’t believe us did she?” he asked. 

Scully shook her head. “She definitely didn’t believe us.” 

The minute they got in the funeral director’s office, Mulder’s phone rang. “Frohike slow down, I can’t understand a word you’re saying,” he said, a couple moments after picking up. There was a small silence before Mulder turned to Scully. “They found the knife,” he said. “I’m going to put you on speaker.”

“Are you sure you found the murder weapon?” Scully asked. 

“Yeah, it was where you told us it would be, put on display in the wrong section, slightly duller than the rest of the blade replicas, and it showed traces of blood,” Frohike answered.

“How do you know there was blood on it?” 

“We bought one of those UV lights,” Langly cut in. “And brushed up on our knowledge of Late Antique weaponry, so we’re pretty sure it’s the murder weapon.” 

“Alright, wait for us there and just make sure no one gets to it before we do.” 

“You got it,” Frohike said before hanging up. 

***

After they had the murder weapon, the rest of the case was easy to piece together. And once they realized that the professor’s assistant also worked part time at the funeral home, the case was closed. Thankfully, the kid didn’t put up a fight, and soon there was nothing else for them to do, so Scully was finally able to get back home. _So much for a relaxing Saturday,_ she thought to herself. 

She almost didn’t even answer the knocking at her door, too tired to get up. But the noise persisted, so she finally heaved a sigh and took a look through the peephole. “Mulder, what are you doing here?” she asked as she pulled the door open. “If you say there’s another murder case I’ll kill you.” 

“Scully, is that what you think of me?” he said, a look of fake surprise on his face. “I just wanted to stop by and see if you wanted to get pizza and watch a movie.” 

“Well, I’ve got nothing better to do, so sure Mulder, come on in,” she said, stepping back. “Do you want me to order the pizza?” 

“Yeah, just the usual I guess,” he said, sitting down. A few minutes later, she sat down next to him. “Hey Scully?” 

“Yes Mulder?” 

“I couldn’t stop thinking about that kid today, the one who killed the professor, and why he didn’t put up a fight.” 

“Well Mulder, judging from what I saw that boy was hyper-rational, and it came to the point where he realized he was going to get caught anyway, so he probably figured that it was useless for him to try and run.” 

“Yeah, but if he really was that rational, why did he kill the professor in the first place?” 

“He said that Dr. Johnson was stealing his research and passing it off as his own in scientific journals. Even someone who is hyper-rational like that can still break, especially if something they care about is threatened. That’s probably why we were able to catch him so quickly. Covering up a murder isn’t normally in this kid’s routine, so he was acting more out of his emotions then his rationality, and when we are emotional, we are more likely to slip up and make mistakes.” 

Mulder didn’t get a chance to respond because the pizza arrived, and the rest of the night was spent talking about everything other than work. The movie that Scully chose was barely watched, and before it ended both Mulder and Scully had dozed off. Scully awoke within an hour and quickly cleaned everything up before going to bed, and she draped a blanket over Mulder, who stirred in his sleep. 

***

The next morning, Scully woke up to the sounds of shuffling in the house, and it was only when she heard Mulder curse did she get out of bed to see what was going on. Mulder gave her an embarrassed look when she stepped into the kitchen. “Did I wake you?” he asked. “I was trying to make breakfast, but I burned myself on the pan.” 

Scully laughed at him, but then looked confused. “Why were you making me breakfast?” she asked. 

“Because you let me just call you on a Saturday morning and help on cases that aren’t technically even our jurisdiction, and then you let me crash on your couch and you didn’t kick me out after I showed up with nothing better to do,” he said. “I mean, if you don’t want to eat-” 

Scully cut him off before he could finish that sentence. “No, Mulder, you made me breakfast, which means I don’t have to make it myself,” she said. Mulder smiled and passed her a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon. They both sat there for a few minutes as they ate, and then Scully broke the silence. “Hey Mulder?” 

“Yes Scully?” 

“Thank you.” 

“Anytime,” he said, smiling brightly. “Your kitchen is a hell of a lot nicer than mine anyway.”

_\- the end -_


End file.
